TNA Staff
The New Arab / January 17, 2026
The Israeli newspaper says the board’s document suggests establishing another peace-building body to replace “failing institutions”
US President Donald Trump is planning to position Gaza’s “Board of Peace” as a rival to the United Nations, the board’s charter, obtained by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, suggests.
Citing a diplomatic source, Haaretz said that the document was sent on Saturday to dozens of world leaders, accompanied by an invitation to join the board.
Notably, Haaretz says, the charter does not mention Gaza nor the UN by name.
The Board of Peace was recently announced by Trump, who will lead the panel himself. It will oversee the management of post-war Gaza; the Palestinian territory is to be led by a transitional government and see the deployment of an international security force.
According to Haaretz, the charter starts by stressing the need for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” adding that durable peace requires “the courage to depart from… institutions that have too often failed.”
The document says that the Gaza peace board will work to “restore dependable and lawful governance and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”, in place of other organisations.
“Durable peace requires pragmatic judgement, common sense solutions and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed,” the charter reads, as reported by Haaretz.
Earlier this week, the Israeli newspaper said that the White House is advancing plans to grant the peace board more powers to take on other conflicts around the world.
According to one of three sources cited by Haaretz, senior US officials see this initiative “as something very close to a new kind of UN, made up of selected countries that would make decisions affecting the world”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and senior Trump aides Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have already been named to the Board of Peace.
Trump has also asked the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, Argentina, and Canada to join.
The other members of the board so far are World Bank President Ajay Banga, an Indian-born American businessman; billionaire US financier Marc Rowan; and Robert Gabriel, a loyal Trump aide who serves on the US National Security Council.
Trump has created a second “Gaza executive board” that appears designed to have a more advisory role.
Relations between Washington and the United Nations, especially under Trump’s presidency, have often been tense, with Trump pulling the US out of different UN bodies and freezing or cutting funds to agencies such as UNRWA and the World Food Programme.
Israel, which enjoyed unwavering support from Washington throughout its genocide campaign in Gaza, has also been hostile toward the UN in recent years.
Earlier this week, Israel cut ties with seven UN agencies and related international organisations over their criticism of its offensive in the Gaza Strip, claiming alleged “anti-Israel bias” and bureaucratic inefficiency.
